Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Bologna Bound

In a few short hours I'll be on my way to Bologna, Italy, thanks to the kind folks at Fondazione ANT (ANT Foundation Italy), a non-profit organization working to raise cancer awareness, improve prevention, and help those already dealing with cancer. As part of ANT's yearlong celebration of its 35th year of doing good deeds, they are hosting an exhibition of Daily Zoo artwork. This is the same exhibition that was at Lucca Comics & Games last fall and includes both originals and prints.

If you just happen to be in Emilia-Romagna this weekend, feel free to join us Saturday, May 4th for a night of art, music, and fun. (And knowing those Italians, probably a pretty decent selection of things to eat and drink as well.)

To help promote the event, ANT asked if I had a drawing of...well, an ant. I had sketched a couple of them previously in the Daily Zoo, one of which I thought could work well. The only thing was that he had a pretty angry/pissed off expression on his face - probably NOT the best choice to promote a cancer fundraiser. (Though maybe it would have been the perfect choice: "Let's get rid of this cancer thing once and for all! GRRRRRRRR!")

My intention was to just draw a new, more inviting face and stick it on the existing body. Enter my "sometimes unfortunate perfectionistic tendencies." Of course my work is quite the opposite of perfect, but often it is difficult for me to leave a drawing alone when I have an inkling that maybe it could be better if I just did this... Sometimes "this" is tweaking the shape of an eye or adjusting a bit of shading, however in the case of the ant, I ended up completely redrawing him. I retained a lot from the original design but just streamlined some of the shapes. Oh, and gave him a smile.

Day 942 - Angry Ant

I'm still quite satisfied with the original angry version, but feel that the new version works better in the context of helping to promote the Bologna exhibition.